The present disclosure relates to controlling blood pressure, including, but not limited to, devices, systems and methods for controlling blood pressure in vessels in vivo to change the physiology of such blood vessels.
An area of surgical medicine where the health and well-being of a patient have not progressed as well as the commonplace nature of the surgery is replacement of arteries due to damaged or diseased state. Although the option of introducing an artificial blood vessel has been used successfully for years, because of the inherent problems of biocompatibility and the resultant chance of implant rejection by the body as well as clotting and other factors, it is often most ideal to use a patient's own blood vessels when there is a need to substitute for a diseased or damaged vessel.
In such a procedure, when a patient's artery needs to be replaced with a substitute, a surgeon picks one of the patient's veins to serve as the substitute, thereby essentially avoiding any complications relating to biocompatibility. However, because the architecture of the veins tends to be significantly different than the artery that they were intended to replace, the transposed vein typically is exposed to conditions for which it is not designed, resulting in structural or physiological damage to the vein. One of the most significant factors that contribute to the failure of the vein in its new location is directly attributable to the significantly increased blood pressure inherent in the arterial system as opposed to the venous system.
Thus, a need exists in the art for an alternative to the conventional methods of replacing damaged or diseased arteries with veins from the same patient that allows the vein to better handle its new function and position but without the drawbacks of conventional methods, which include repeated care or operations or the inherent shock to the venous system from the shock of sudden exposure to arterial pressure.